Jack Elam, Lazy-Eyed Movie Villain, Is Dead

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Published: October 23, 2003

Jack Elam, whose leer, bulging eye and precise acting skills transformed him from an accountant into one of the movies' most identifiable villains, died on Monday at his home in Ashland, Ore. Most published sources list him as 86.

A friend in Ashland, Al Hassan, told The Associated Press, however, that he was actually 84, having lied about his age to get work as a youngster.

''I'm old,'' Mr. Elam said in an interview with The Modesto (Calif.) Bee in 1993. ''Just put down that I'm old.''

He appeared in about 100 films and 200 television episodes. In one of his first significant roles, ''Rawhide'' (1951), he cemented his reputation as a bad guy by shooting a baby to make it ''dance'' and killing everybody in the picture except Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward.

A review in The New York Times mentioned ''a maniacal henchman, played with great disagreeable effect by Jack Elam.''

Good guys from Frank Sinatra to Henry Fonda gunned him down in classic westerns. His credits included ''High Noon'' and ''Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.''

He had major roles in five television series, including ''The Dakotas'' and ''Struck by Lightning'' and appeared as a guest in many others, including more than 20 ''Gunsmoke'' episodes.

His eyes conveyed villainy as surely as Durante's nose suggested humor, the result of an accidental stabbing with a pencil at a Boy Scout meeting that left him blind on the left side. One eye squinted and the other was open; one pointed one way and the other another. It all seemed malevolent.

''I don't control it at all,'' Mr. Elam told The Bee when complimented on what seemed to be his dramatic control of his eye. ''It does whatever the hell it wants.''

Only later in his career did Mr. Elam have a chance to display his natural wit and comic timing, in starring roles in comedies like ''Support Your Local Sheriff'' (1969) and ''The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County'' (1970). On ''Gunsmoke,'' his roles changed from thugs to more varied characters.

Several references say that Mr. Elam was born on Nov. 13, 1916, in Miami, Ariz., a tiny mining community 100 miles from Phoenix. His mother died shortly after he was born, and he was taken in by various families who made him earn at least part of his keep. In an interview with The Toronto Star in 1986, he remembered picking cotton at 6.

When he was 9, he was returned to his father, who lived in Northern California. His father was going blind and had trouble doing his job as an accountant for the state government. He had his son fill out forms for him at night. The accident, when he was 12, took half of the boy's own sight.

College courses in accounting and his father's training helped him get a job as a bookkeeper with the Bank of America in Los Angeles. He then became an auditor for the Standard Oil Company.

After two years in the Navy during World War II, be became an independent auditor for Samuel Goldwyn Studios and General Services Studios.

Then a doctor told him he would lose his sight permanently if he continued to stare at ledger sheets, so he bought his way into the business, he told The Daily Oklahoman in 1994, when he was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame.

He made a deal with a producer who needed money for three westerns and was willing to cast Mr. Elam as a heavy in all three films in return for backing. One role was a tough-guy part in ''The Sundowners'' (1950), which starred Robert Preston.

His last screen credit was ''Bonanza: Under Fire'' (1995). He moved to Ashland from Santa Barbara around 1990.

He is survived by his wife, Jenny, a daughter and two sons.

In real life, Mr. Elam was known for both his convivial nature on movie sets and for his work ethic. His believability as a villain sometimes came with a price. He told The Daily Oklahoman that ''a lot of women have come and whacked me with a purse over something they've seen me do in a movie.''